


Not Before Christmas

by Aloysius



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Lots of people are mentioned who don't do a lot but it's okay they're pretty cool, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-15
Updated: 2013-02-15
Packaged: 2017-11-29 10:00:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/685681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aloysius/pseuds/Aloysius
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Karkat doesn't get human holidays, apart from the ones where he gets things out of them, until he gets a little more than he bargained for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Before Christmas

**Author's Note:**

> Based on this post http://davekatwhisperer.tumblr.com/post/34257314444

Dave and Karkat first moved into their home on the Fourth of July. Karkat didn't really get the human holiday but Dave was going on and on about this celebration, talking Karkat's ear off as he used his brute troll strength to move the bulk of the furniture. Dave fussed over tiny things while talking about fireworks and barbecues and other things Karkat had never heard of while he took care to make sure his instruments and cameras weren't damaged. Karkat gave his guitar case a tiny kick and Dave started growling.  
Karkat didn't exactly want to go traipsing off into a field to have a barbecue and wait for it to get dark so the fire things Dave went on about could start. Still, Dave promised him they could christen their new bed and despite being exhausted from moving all the boxes he figured a blow job would be a nice reward. Karkat stubbornly took a seat on the side of the hill when they arrived and crossed his arms defiantly. Dave smirked and ruffled his hair, kissing the top of his head and drifting off to where the smell of meat was wafting over the fields. He came back with two bottles of coke, two hot dogs and two burgers. Karkat took his and took a huge bite - he hadn't realised how hungry he was - but pulled a face.  
"Strider this doesn't taste of anything." He complained loudly. Trolls tended to eat more spicy foods with strong flavours, and found human food bland. Dave pulled a bottle of chilli sauce from his bag and emptied most of it on Karkat's food. He chirped happily and wolfed the burger down, chugging half the coke and starting on the hotdog. Dave was still squeezing ketchup on his.  
"If you don't hurry up I'm going to eat it." Karkat mumbled around a mouthful of food.  
Dave rolled his eyes. "I'll buy you more once i've eaten, geez."  
Karkat nodded enthusiastically. "What's this thing we're waiting for?"  
"Fireworks, dude. Explode in the sky, all sparkly and colourful and shit. Terezi'd shit herself with excitement."  
Karkat finished his hotdog and licked the sauce from his fingers. "And until then we do what, exactly?"  
Dave smirked and set his food down, slapping Karkat's hand away when he reached for it. He took a packet of sparklers from his bag and slid one out, taking out his lighter. Karkat's face lit up when it burst into flame.  
"What the fuck is THAT?"  
"Sparkler." Dave waved it around a little then handed it to Karkat.  
He flicked it around experimentally, eyes following it everywhere. He started drawing shapes in the air, but it went out halfway through writing his name. He whined, but Dave pressed another lit one into his hand immediately. A grin broke over his face and he wrote both their names in the air with a little heart. Dave snorted and leaned against him, taking his free hand. Karkat watched the little trails of light the sparkler left behind with wonder, and when it went out he held his hand out for another.  
"Man, you are just having a blast with this aren't you."  
"Another."  
"You don't want to save any?"  
"Another." He insisted.  
Dave was about to light one up when the first firework exploded above them, showering the sky with red and blue. Karkat shrieked and jumped backwards. Dave raised an eyebrow and opened his mouth to speak but Karkat silenced him with a glare. Another went off, and then they started coming thick and fast. Karkat's eyes were wide with terror as the noise assaulted his sensitive ears. Dave smiled fondly and moved to wrap his arms around him comfortingly, cooing in his ear and rocking him a little.  
"I'm not scared." He insisted, voice shaking. "They're great. Nice and....loud."  
He jumped again and buried his head in Dave's shoulder. Dave shook his head and took his headphones and iPod from his bag. He slipped them over Karkat's tiny pointed ears and turned the volume right up, and slowly the troll relaxed, letting his eyes drift up to the sky. Now the noise wasn't assaulting his ears he found he could enjoy the colours showering the sky, and smiled softly as he relaxed back against Dave's chest, letting him rest his chin on top of his head.

Hallowe'en was another human holiday Karkat didn't get, but when he heard the words 'free candy' he knew he'd like it. Troll candy wasn't exactly tasty when you weren't a grub, but he'd developed quite a taste for the sour blue and pink bottles Dave was always eating. When he heard the word 'costume' he knew Terezi and Kanaya would be involved, and he wasn't sure he liked the sound of that. Dave had explained the idea of trick or treating, and insisted they had to go since Karkat clearly had the best 'costume'. He was okay with this, for a while.   
Everyone agreed to meet at the Strider-Vantas household beforehand, for what Kanaya insisted would be vital costume adjusting time and Sollux said needed to be pre-festivities drinking.  
John arrived first, dressed as some ridiculous human superhero or whatever called Thor, which was apparently an excuse for him to wield his ridiculously huge hammer. Dave was in this stupid all black thing and insisted he was Batman and refused to answer to anything else. They fist bumped when John arrived and disappeared into the kitchen. Karkat was sitting at the top of the stairs at the time, reading, and he peered at them over his glasses before wrinkling his face up and deciding to ignore them.  
Kanaya let herself in, gliding through the door in a floor length dress that billowed for fucks sake, with tiny pinpricks or blood on her neck - red he noticed - and 'fake' fangs in her mouth. She frowned at Karkat disapprovingly, him in an old shirt of Dave's, too long jeans and bare feet, and dropped a bag at the door of the stairs. Of course she came prepared. Reluctantly he slunk down to dig through it, and found a superhero style mask in red, a grey hooded cloak and a tight fitting black shirt with sleeves that reached the elbows and the cancer sign on the front. She informed he was also allowed skintight black jeans and those combat boots that Dave never wore.  
He sighed, but obliged.  
He had no clue what he was supposed to be but the shirt - apparently made of neoprene, he was informed - was uncomfortable and the cloak caught around his ankles when he walked. He tried to forgo the mask but Kanaya began screeching and he gave up.  
Unsurprisingly Terezi turned up in a dragon costume and greeted everyone by licking their face, and Sollux slunk through the door dressed as a zombie. Apparently an alcoholic zombie, judging by the rate he was drinking. Rose and Jade arrived at the same time, Jade in some sort of fursuit and Rose in a ridiculous veil and huge black dress that almost prevented her from getting through the door.  
Karkat tried to hide in his room but Terezi grabbed his legs and he got stuck with them.  
Dave had told him how cold October could be but he'd underestimated it, and was really wishing he'd either stayed at home or been allowed to wear a hoodie. He pulled his cloak tighter around himself and glowered at the plastic pumpkin in his hand.  
"Cheer up kitten," Dave slung an arm around his shoulder. "Think of the candy."  
"I don't like your damn candy, you assmunching bulgelicker, you know what I like? I like warm beds and blankets and books and not walking around your stupid fucking city in the middle of a cold night dressed up liked a damn grub to beg candy of humans. That is stupid. You are stupid."  
He folded his arms and wouldn't speak to Dave for the rest of the night.  
He surprised everyone by being good with kids. Nobody was expecting a small boy to run up to Karkat and tug on his cape with an over-confident 'hey mister', but when Karkat whirled round they thought he was done for. Instead Karkat crouched down and smiled, telling him he was an awesome pirate and gave him a kitkat.  
Dave insisted loudly that someone had stolen his boyfriend and had a plastic pumpkin launched at his head.  
Karkat discovered the aftermath of Hallowe'en was much worse. They stayed out until their stupid pumpkins were overflowing - Sollux took two and still managed to fill them - and Karkat ate nearly all of it. Some of it he ate off Dave after literally ripping him out of his stupid tight costume, but feeling as sick as he did afterwards he concluded it definitely was not worth it in the slightest.

Christmas he liked. Christmas started at the beginning of December and lasted a whole month and the house was warm and looked nice and he had an excuse not to go out. He heard John had bought a real tree and liked the idea of the whole house smelling of pine, but when Dave told him the mess the needles made he abruptly changed his mind and bought a pine scented air freshener instead. The first day of December Dave bought out an artificial tree from the attic and set it up in the living room, even though they'd lost the box of decorations. Karkat spent the evening sitting in front of the fire in an ugly Christmas sweater he'd bought ironically just to piss off Dave, with his tiny hands wrapped around a mug of mulled wine while Dave lounged across the couch playing songs on his guitar.  
Karkat bought the decorations the next day while Dave was at work and decorated the whole house. For the tree he'd bought red and gold decorations and got tangled in the lights and had to open the door to the postman to receive their first Christmas card as a couple with the wires still wrapped around his legs. He wrapped tiny white lights up the stair banister and hung icicle lights from the roof and in the windows and put tinsel and candles in every room. Dave came home just as he was adding the last baubles - huge red ones dipped in glitter - and he struggled through the door with even more tinsel.  
Too much, as it were, because Karkat began throwing it round the house like it was snow until it covered the entire floor of the lounge and he flopped over in it and refused to move, even when Dave started to kick him and tried to tempt him away with soup. Karkat defiantly made a tinsel snow angel.  
That evening it snowed for real, the first time Karkat had ever seen it. He pressed his face up against the window and stared at the tiny flakes spiralling down and drifting to the floor, his breath fogging up the glass. Dave finally enticed him away with food, but only because he stood behind him with a plate of curry and wafted the smell of spice towards him.  
By the time they'd eaten the snow was settling and getting pretty deep, so Dave bundled Karkat into a coat and hat and scarf and gloves and let him loose, watching him bound around the yard like a tiny puppy, trying to catch snowflakes and kicking huge piles of it into the air.  
Unsurprisingly it was Dave that initiated the snowball fight, and he hit Karkat square in the face. He stood blinking for a minute as the snow dripped onto his scarf, face scrunched up like he couldn't decided whether to laugh or cry, then hurled it right back when Dave came close enough to comfort him. Karkat's whole face was numb by the time Dave gave in, if giving in meant being tackled to the floor by a troll half your size. They lazily made snow angels - proper ones - as Karkat lay with his tongue out to catch the snowflakes.  
"Put that tongue away or do something with it." Dave remarked halfheartedly, and the suddenly the troll was sitting on him, his frozen lips pressed against Dave's. He ran his gloved hands through Dave's hair and sighed. Dave struggled to sit up and wrapped his long arms around Karkat's waist, until he started to go numb from sitting in the snow and he carried Karkat inside.  
Christmas itself was what Karkat would later refer do as "a damn fucking shambles of human indecency". John was the only one with a house big enough for them all, so all sixteen of them crowded round his dinner table for a monstrous amount of food.  
Seating everyone proved to be the biggest problem, because Jade had decided she hated Karkat for whatever reason and wouldn't be near him - but she'd brought Bec and he seemed pretty happy to bring his teeth too close - and Vriska kept trying to poke Tavros with her fork and her and Terezi were general causing mischief so they tried to solve the problem by moving Vriska but then she began a food fight and they moved her back when a piece of turkey landed in Nepeta's wine. They assumed they'd have to keep Eridan and Sollux apart because of hate reasons, but instead it was because they sat making lovesick eyes at each other with soft little smiles and doing what everyone thought was holding hands under the table.  
Karkat sulked - even after chocolate cake - until John ushered them into the living room around his obscenely huge tree and brought out the presents. Terezi had for whatever reason got him a dragon hoodie, with tail and spikes and all, and he put it on there and then, huddling inside it in the corner. Sollux got him a book on being the perfect housewife and Karkat threw it at his face, but then discovered it actually had a really good recipe for biscuits. He'd been thoughtful enough to get Sollux a stupidly expensive state of the art laptop in return, and he'd practically purred when he opened the box, and gave Karkat his real present. Karkat loved the shitty romance movie box set.  
Dave bought him a puppy, but of course he didn't get Dave's present until Christmas morning, when it clambered over him in bed and woke him by licking his face.

Easter, like Hallowe'en he didn't see the point of, since he could buy chocolate any other time. Dave came up with a cunning plan to make it more interesting, and so Karkat sat in the living room eating his way through the Reese's eggs while Dave hid a whole hoard of eggs around the house. He insisted Karkat go find them.  
He found the first one in Dave's hood, and Dave looked pretty disappointed he'd found it so soon. He found one in the washing machine and in his shoes and inside a lamp and in Dave's underwear drawer and behind the TV in their bedroom and balanced on top of their shower head and under one of the pillows.  
The last he found under the hat Dave hadn't been wearing when he left the room.  
"That's cheating fuckface." Karkat insisted as he removed it. "And stupid."  
"Forgive me if I'm wrong but are you or are you not having fun Mr Grumpy Gills? You were just bounding around the house like a small child trying to find chocolate eggs like your life depended on their delicious existence. Maybe it does, who knows. Our very being may depend on the consumption of chocolate, quick! You better eat that yummy bitch before you start to disappear and I have to clone you from the fucking stain you left on my favourite jeans last night you disgusting whore."  
Karkat stuck his tongue out ("Use it or lose it Kitten.") and went to add the egg to his growing pile, then paused, sensitive ears twitching. He shook the egg gently.  
Clink.  
He shook it again harder and scrunched his face up, giving Dave a suspicious look. Dave shrugged.  
"Better open the sweet little bitch up Kitkat, see what her tasty insides are hiding from you."  
Karkat smashed it against the edge of the table, and something shot out of it and rolled away. He dived to catch it and his fist closed around it seconds before it disappeared under the couch. He stood as gracefully as he could and glared at a laughing Dave, then slowly unfurled his fist.  
There was a ring sitting in his hand, silver with a tiny ruby nestled in the middle.  
He looked to Dave, and he was on one knee.  
Karkat had no idea what he actually said, but he heard "I love you" and "human marry me" and that was all that mattered, because he was too busy crying to actually hear what Dave said. In the end Dave had to get up and hug Karkat gently and shoosh him until he calmed down, the ring still in his hand.  
"It's a yes, so long as I get the rest of the Reese's eggs." Karkat finally mumbled, letting Dave slide the ring onto his finger. "Those things are once a year damnit.


End file.
